A list of books I've read recently with some gibberish thrown in masquerading as indepth criticism.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

DEATH UNDER SAIL - C.P Snow

From 1932 this is Snow's first published novel and his only 'whodunnit', after this he embarked on his "Strangers and Brothers" series.

Six people are on a boating holiday in the 'fens". The host is found shot dead at the tiller of the yacht. From this the remaining guests move to a conveniently local house to solve the matter themselves with a cameo by an idiotic local police man.

This is what Raymond Chandler called a 'cheat ' crime novel, in that the reader is not given remotely enough information to solve the crime by information from the story.

The highlight for me is the puritan housekeeper, she made me laugh constantly. Apart from that the only interest is the manners of the people of the period- (everyone is so damn polite even though they loathe each other)- there's not much to recommend this.

It is short, two decent baths on a rainy Sunday nailed it but there's much better 'crime' around from this time period.